Chapter 3 Bath's Historical and Geographical Setting
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CHAPTER 3 BATH’S HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING INTRODUCTION Shaped by historical and geological events, Bath, Maine is a slim needle of a city, pulled north and south along the western bank of the Kennebec River. This needle—about 5 miles long and 1 mile wide—formed of homes, farms, businesses and industries has sewn the inhabitants of Bath into centuries of American history with the threads of the many ships built here. This chapter examines the historical and geographical setting of the City of Ships. But any examination of this history that numbers so few pages cannot possibly present all the important events, individuals and groups. The following provides illustrative examples and aspects, but does not do justice to the rich history of this community and those that have peopled it. THE GEOLOGIC SETTING OF THE CITY Bath’s suitability as a shipbuilding port was, in a sense, created by the ancient geologic forces that molded the entire east coast of the United States. The folding, faulting, and crumpling of the earth’s crust formed the Appalachian Mountains and its associated chains. Two-hundred million years of uplift and river erosion, followed by two-million years of glacial erosion, shaped the New England landscape. During the glacial epoch the weight of the ice depressed the crust, allowing flooding of the valleys upon the melting of the glacial ice. The valleys of the drowned coastline became bays and inlets; the higher ridges producing the peninsulas and islands of the midcoast region. Through eons the geologic landscape evolved into local topography that encouraged our maritime industry. The glacier left many lakes in New England; the largest in the area is Moosehead Lake, the source of the Kennebec River. In Bath about 12 miles upstream from Popham and the river’s mouth, the channel of the Kennebec flows wide and straight from Thorne Head to Fiddler’s Reach and Winnegance, almost five miles of what would be known as Long Reach. This maneuverable half-mile-wide stretch of tidal river was made accessible by the low and gentle relief of the area, particularly at water’s edge where land Chapter 3 Page 1 slopes gradually, allowing the easy use of shore for maritime industries. The Kennebec here, despite troublesome currents, also possesses a soft, sandy bottom that provided good anchorage. On the western bank of Long Reach, a series of granite-supported ridges generally parallels the line of the river, successive ridges rising like steps away from the river. Three of these ridges hold the major north-south streets that emphasize the elongated shape of Bath—Washington, Middle, and High Streets. The subdivision of early land holdings would create long, slender parcels that stretched across these ridges to the all-important water. These property lines often determined the placement of the east- west cross streets in the young community. To the south and west, the land rises more sharply to heights that strongly influenced and contained the location of initial settlement and continued development. The settlement focused on the river, the major road of its time and the source of much industry. As time progressed, development even reached out into the water as wharves were extended, creeks diverted, and low and near-shore areas artificially filled. And so, the coastline of Long Reach was rewritten, not by geological forces, but by human action into Bath, the City of Ships. PREHISTORY AND EARLY CONTACT IN THE MIDCOAST REGION That human imprint on the landscape began with the Native-American presence in the region some twelve thousand or more years ago—before the state was completely ice-free from the glacier. Approximately one thousand years prior to European contact, this part of North America was the home of the Eastern Algonquian who typically organized in small local bands with seasonal residences. For some of those bands, the Kennebec River provided an important transportation route, providing a path between the subsistence-lifestyle resources of the interior lakes, the tidal estuaries, and the offshore islands. Just before contact with the Europeans, the patterns of life in the Northeast for the Native Americans were evolving rapidly in response to technological innovations within agricultural practices, ceramic use, and canoe construction. The rhythms of this well-rooted but developing life were interrupted by the arrival of the European explorer and trader. European interest in this portion of the so-called “New World” was intermittent. The contact between European fishermen and the natives of Maine was limited in the sixteenth century. The shifting fashionable and Chapter 3 Page 2 political desires of a European population, however, drove more explorers to the coast and inland in their search for both beaver pelts and areas for colonization. The Kennebec River in the immediate vicinity of Bath was investigated by Samuel de Champlain in 1605 and John Smith in 1616. With this intensification of interest in the area of Maine and the resulting visits came the epidemics that left a coastline of New England described in 1619 as dotted with “ancient Plantations, not long since populous now utterly void; other places a remnant remains but not free of sickness” (quoted in Bourque: 119). No permanent Native-American settlements have been identified in Bath, but in the shoreland zone some archaeological sites associated with seasonal or hunting camps of pre-contact and early post-contact populations have been located. POPHAM COLONY AND EARLY SETTLEMENT: 1607-1750 English colonization began famously and briefly on the doorstep of Bath at the failed Popham Colony in 1607. That temporary settlement contributed to the general knowledge of the Kennebec River and the neighboring region. More serious resettlement slowly began in 1630 in the area labeled as Sagadahock that included Bath, West Bath, Woolwich, Arrowsic, Georgetown, Phippsburg, and even portions of Brunswick. Trading posts and budding settlements by adventurous individuals sprang up along the Kennebec in the middle of the seventeenth century. In the current limits of the city, settlements by Christopher Lawson and Alexander Thwaite were significant. Within a dozen years they were joined by a handful of others. In 1665 as the number of colonists rose, the town of Kennebec was acknowledged formally although bounds were not specifically defined. This town of Kennebec separated Bath, Phippsburg, and Brunswick on the western bank of the river from the more populated eastern portions of the Sagadahock area. Much of what was the central portion of Bath was owned by Robert Gutch. When he died in 1667, the land that he had obtained from Robinhood, Terrumquin, Weasomonasco, Scawque, and Abumhamen, representatives of the Kennebec tribe, was left to his eight children, although it would not be divided and sold for nearly ninety years by the remaining descendants of four of his daughters. The pattern of settlement, including the process of purchasing parcels, establishing homes and businesses, and creating local governments, was disrupted in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. The generally Chapter 3 Page 3 good relations between the indigenous people and the newer residents of New England were torn apart by a series of wars that may have been inevitable, considering the differing world views of these groups and the competitive nature of the European powers. The first of these wars, known as King Philip’s War, began in Massachusetts in 1675. The turmoil spread to Maine, culminating in this region in the raids the next year on both the Hammond Trading Post at the Narrows across from Chops Point on the eastern shore of the Kennebec and the Clarke and Lake Post in Arrowsic, from which only five colonists escaped death or capture. Although some colonists persevered in the coming years, additional wars, attacks and counter-incursions soon persuaded virtually all that the towns of Sagadahock and Kennebec were best abandoned at this time. After the resolution of Queen Anne’s War in 1714, English settlers returned to this region, at least temporarily, beginning with Arrowsic Island. Here in 1716 the township of Georgetown was established. In Bath, repopulation dragged; only three families lived within the current limits of the city between the resolution of Queen Anne’s War and the beginning of Dummer’s War in 1722.1 At that time, apparently all three lost their homes to the fires of Indian raids. In North Bath at the Chops, Joseph Maynes established his ferry where Merrymeeting Bay and the Kennebec meet during the first part of the eighteenth century (Dearborn Lovetere). Rebuilding began once again in 1725. By 1738 five families had created homesteads in Long Reach, as Bath was known at that time. This time the foothold was permanent, despite skirmishes with Indians in the coming years. In that same year Georgetown was organized and enlarged to encompass the current towns of Bath, West Bath, Phippsburg, Arrowsic, Woolwich, and Georgetown. THE SECOND PARISH BEGINS: 1753-1760 In 1753 the forty families north of Winnegance Creek successfully petitioned the legislature of the Massachusetts Colony for permission to incorporate the second parish of Georgetown. Noting the difficulty, particularly in winter, of travel to the Meetinghouse in Georgetown, the inhabitants wished to establish their own place of worship, but not to separate from the town or its governance. The residents had already set 1 A map dating from 1718 indicates the pioneering homestead of the cooper Christopher Lawson from some fifty years earlier, noting “Mr. Lawson’s Cellar” in North Bath (Dearborn Lovetere). Chapter 3 Page 4 aside small parcels as private cemeteries.2 The first meetinghouse, Bath’s first public building, finished in 1762, was on the current Berry’s Mill Road in West Bath, where the town road (corresponding to today’s Western Avenue which was a continuation of High Street) intersected the old military road.